BOXING

BOXING; Immediate Takeover Of I.B.F. Is Denied

By RONALD SMOTHERS

Published: November 24, 1999

NEWARK, Nov. 23—
A federal judge today turned down a request by federal prosecutors to remove control of the International Boxing Federation from its indicted leaders immediately, but he said he would hear additional arguments in the case on Monday.

The decision by the judge, John W. Bissell, came in response to an attempt by the United States Attorney for New Jersey, Robert J. Cleary, to bring the sanctioning and ranking organization under the control of a court-appointed monitor. In a 32-count indictment filed on Nov. 4, federal officials charged that the I.B.F.'s top officials had extorted money from boxers and managers in exchange for rankings and a shot at lucrative bouts. On Monday, the law-enforcement officials announced they were seeking a monitor who would have subpoena power and a mandate to restructure the organization, ridding it of what the federal officials called corruption and racketeering influences.

But today's hearing also added a new and confusing wrinkle to the already complicated case. Lawyers for the I.B.F. and its New Jersey-based officials said their clients themselves were victims of misconduct by other officials of the group. Lawyers for Robert W. Lee Sr., the president of the I.B.F. and one of those under indictment, said today that late last week Lee had moved in state court here to wrest control of the bank accounts of the I.B.F. from three people who were described as Oregon-based minority shareholders and officers of the for-profit company that is the owner of the not-for-profit ranking organization.

Late Friday, New Jersey Chancery Judge Julio M. Fuentes granted the motion sought by Lee to bar the three people, Robert Weitzel, Zola Weitzel and Hugh R. McDonald, from access to the sanctioning body's Oregon bank accounts and ordered them to turn over records of the organization that were in their possession. Lee charged in court papers that the three had ''diverted'' a total of $1.5 million from the organization since 1992.

The disclosures represented perhaps the first public acknowledgment by Lee and other I.B.F. officials that a for-profit organization has been behind the organization since 1986. The organization had always publicly represented itself as a not-for-profit entity, but as recently as 1996, rumors and reports began surfacing about the for-profit corporation based in Oregon.

Pat English, the lawyer for Main Event boxing promotions, said today that he had first discovered the existence of a for-profit entity in 1996 when he was representing Michael Moorer in a lawsuit against the I.B.F. Moorer contended that the organization's rankings had fraudulently denied him a heavyweight title bout. In his investigations, English said, he learned of the existence of the for-profit corporation and learned of the names of the Weitzels and McDonald, who were listed as vice president, secretary and treasurer.

''Shortly after I disclosed this information the case settled in favor of my client,'' English said in an interview today. ''We were planning to point to this as an example of the organization's corruption and attempts to hide something, and I concluded that the settlement was related to what I planned to do.''

In Federal District Court here today Lee's lawyer, Gerald Krovatin, and the I.B.F.'s lawyer, Linda P. Torres, said that the leadership of the group had ''decided to wind down the for-profit entity in Oregon and place it under the control of the nonprofit entity,'' which is incorporated in Rhode Island. The two lawyers as well as the papers filed in state court contend that the move is an attempt to ''consolidate'' the assets of the organization and protect them from being dissipated by the minority shareholders in Oregon.

The Weitzels, who are a married couple, could not be reached for comment. McDonald, reached by telephone, acknowledged that he had been a shareholder of the for-profit corporation and called Lee's allegations ''a total fabrication.''

''I think it is a scramble by our illustrious president to try to shift the attention away from himself,'' said McDonald, who hung up saying that he had nothing else to say.

In their court papers, the not-for-profit I.B.F. and Lee maintain that it was the Weitzels and McDonald who advised him in 1986 to incorporate the I.B.F. as a for-profit entity in Oregon. But board members of the not-for-profit organization at the time, such as Alvin Goodman, a Miami lawyer, said they knew nothing of such advice or the creation of another I.B.F. entity.

Goodman said he learned of the existence of the for-profit corporation in 1997 and said he had been ''shocked'' at the news.